Billionaire George Soros 'slapped 28-year-old Brazilian ex-lover and tried to choke her after he refused to give her $1.9m Manhattan apartment'

When it comes to finance, he is a master speculator, making billions thanks to his uncanny ability to predict movements in the market.

But it seems there is one area in which George Soros’s famous foresight may have failed him – women.

The 81-year-old financier, known as the Man Who Broke the Bank of England after reportedly making millions during the 1992 UK currency crises, is being sued for £31million by his 28-year-old Brazilian ex-girlfriend.

Battle: Soros' lawyers last night finally filed their response to Adriana Ferreyr's lawsuit, which claimed she was emotionally tortured, harassed and abused by the 82-year-old

Soap star Adriana Ferreyr claims Mr Soros slapped her in the face and attempted to choke her as they argued over property in bed together.

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The actress says she had been in a relationship with him for five years before he dumped her last year. But, according to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, there was a brief reconciliation in August last year in which the couple spent a night together at Mr Soros’s home in New York’s Upper East Side.

It was there that Mr Soros allegedly made one of his rare misjudgments.

Miss Ferreyr claims that while they were in bed Mr Soros, who has an estimated £8.9billion fortune, ‘bluntly’ told her that a £1.2million apartment he had promised her in New York had been given to another woman.

Loving couple: George Soros and Adriana Ferreyr in an undated photo. Miss Ferreyr has filed a $50m lawsuit after their five-year relationship ended acrimoniously

Furious: Miss Ferreyr claims Soros threw a glass lamp at her, choked her and slapped her around the face

Matters were not helped when the Hungarian-born financier allegedly added: ‘I gave it to my girlfriend and she is flourishing.’

In the inevitable row which followed, ‘Mr Soros slapped Miss Ferreyr across the face and proceeded to put his hands around her neck in an attempt to choke her,’ the lawsuit claims. Miss Ferreyr says she managed to evade him and picked up a glass lamp to protect herself. Mr Soros then allegedly grabbed the lamp and tried to hit her with it, narrowly missing.

She claims she ran into the office next to Mr Soros’s bedroom and called police.

Lavish: Pictures of one of the $1.9million apartments at 30 East 85th Street in Manhattan

Miss Ferreyr claims the confrontation traumatised her to the point she was ‘unable to function in her day-to-day life’.

She says she has since had to have treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Upscale apartment: The building at 30 East 85th Street - where the love rivals are residing - contains luxury properties in a prime Manhattan location

Mr Soros strongly denies the allegations.

William Zabel, Mr Soros’s lawyer, called the suit ‘frivolous and entirely without merit’. Although he admitted his client had an ‘on-again, off-again’ relationship with Miss Ferreyr, he said the complaint was ‘riddled with false charges and is obviously an attempt to extract money from my client, who is known to be a very rich man’.

He added: ‘The police investigated the incident referred to and concluded that no assault occurred. George Soros did not slap, choke or throw a lamp at her.’

Miss Ferreyr, a former child actor and star of Portuguese McDonald’s commercials, says she first met Mr Soros five years ago.

By 2007, they were in a ‘serious and meaningful’ relationship, she says. She claims she found her ‘dream home’ on the seventh floor of a luxury high-rise block just two streets from Mr Soros’s home, and that he agreed to buy it for her.

But she says he then twice broke promises to buy her flats in the building.

And after learning she was going to rent a flat there instead, Mr Soros hired private security men to ‘follow and intimidate’ her, she claims.

Mr Soros ‘not only breached his multiple promises…but he proceeded to engage in a deliberate and malicious campaign of extreme and outrageous harassment and intimidation against Ferreyr, which has directly resulted in her suffering and continuing to suffer severe emotional distress and damages,’ says the suit.

THE HUNGARIAN WHO BROKE THE BANK OF ENGLAND

Hungarian-born
Mr Soros, while being a notable philanthropist championing liberal
causes, is also known as the 'Man Who Broke The Bank Of England'.

He
made an estimated £600 million during the 1992 'Black Wednesday' UK
currency crises, correctly predicting that the British government would
have to devalue the pound.

On
16 September, 1992, his fund sold short more than $10 billion worth of
pounds, profiting from the UK government's reluctance to either raise
its interest rates or float its currency - finally withdrawing from the
European Exchange Rate Mechanism and devaluing the pound.

In 1997, the UK Treasury estimated the cost of Black Wednesday at £3.4 billion.

Her lawyer, Robert Hantman, said it was unfortunate she had to resort to court action as she had hoped to settle the dispute privately. He said: ‘It’s 1/7000th of his wealth. She just wants what he promised her.’ But a source close to Mr Soros, whose birthday it is today, said: ‘This is nothing but a woman scorned who is out to get paid.

‘These claims are outrageous and he will seek to dismiss them at the earliest opportunity.

‘George is dealing with this well – this is a man who survived the Holocaust. The suggestion he attacked her is without merit.’

Mr Soros’s private life is rarely touched on in the U.S.. Married and twice divorced, he has five children. In the past few years, Mr Soros’s reported girlfriends have included the violinist Jennifer Chun and former Miss Russia Anna Malova.

In 2007, there were rumours linking him with Queen Noor, widow of King Hussein of Jordan, but he said they were baseless.

Praised in the U.S. as a generous philanthropist who has sunk millions into liberal causes, Mr Soros is most famous in Britain for betting against the pound.

In September 1992, his fund sold short more than $10billion worth of sterling, profiting from the British government’s reluctance to either raise its interest rates or float its currency – before finally withdrawing from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and devaluing the pound.

The Treasury later estimated that the whole episode cost the British taxpayer £3.4billion.